This blog explores my professional experiences and personal feelings as I have worked with people who are in the last chapter of their lives. I dedicate this blog to all of these people who have each taught me something new about life and about myself. The stories in this blog, however, are all fictionalized. Any resemblance to real life people and circumstances is purely coincidence.

Saturday, February 05, 2011

A Unique Tribute to a Loved One: Turn Them Into a Diamond

I am in the process of planning my wedding. I haven't announced it here, as I didn't see its relevance to the topic of this blog. However while reading postings in a forum of a wedding community I participate in, I came across a post about turning a deceased loved one into a diamond. Literally! I'd never heard of this before, but was immediately curious to know more.

I'd heard of cremation jewelry that's made to hold the cremated remains of a loved one. But in this case, the cremated remains literally ARE the jewel in the jewelry. The cost makes it impractical at a minimum of $2490 (unless you purchase multiple gems which brings the price per gem down somewhat). But it's certainly a novel idea!

13 comments:

I've loved the idea of Life Gem ever since I first saw it mentioned on the TV show "Family Plots", when Rick Sadler had his son's ashes turned into diamonds and made into jewelry for his wife and daughter. My mother loved jewelry -- if I'd died while she was still alive, I would have liked to have been made into a ring for her to wear.

I think this is beyond the purview of a unique tribute to a loved one. I have concerns about transforming someone into a material object of possession. This is like creating of a relic of some sort. I know the idea is that it would remain a family heirlomm, but there is a danger that one day it could be a commodity.

I started reading about turning loved one's into diamonds several years ago. It's very much a "to each his own" matter but the idea of having my deceased father on a pendant at my throat unnerves me. I'd rather have a clearer picture of the happy times than the gem, but science can't give us that...yet.

I don't know about that one. I have never heard about it before and don't think I will go about finding out more. With Nurse's Week upon us I am more concerned with staying awake rather than thinking about my husband as a diamond...or am I...

After reading the literature, I would say I have never previously heard of such a thing, and need to know more. Having said that, I personally would never use any part of a loved one's body to create anything. A loved one's body should be returned to the earth, "dust to dust, ashes to ashes". However, using a lock of hair is something very different, and if this process really uses hair, that is a pretty amazing idea, one which I might be interested in.

Hi,My name is Sophie and I am currently writing my Masters dissertation about ‘work blogging’. I have found your blog on workblogging.blogspot.com and want to ask you if you would be willing to participate in my study. It would only take two minutes to fill in my questionnaire under the following link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SJFTYFTNo personal details about you or the company you work for are asked for and all the information and data you give will be treated confidentially and will only be used for the purpose of this study.I would really appreciate your help Thank you in advanceSophie

I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.its nice to read a useful article for beginner like me. Some of points from this article are very helpful for me as I haven’t considered them yet. I would like to say thank you for sharing this cool article. Bookmarked and sharing for friends.

I've come into the discussion a bit late but this is definitely an interesting idea that I've never heard of before.

Obviously, any way that someone chooses to remember their loved one is special and unique to them. However, it might be an idea to encourage talking about these sort of issues (as well as a few other important ones) at the end-of-life in order to know how the loved one feels about it all.

There are plenty of important processes at the end-of-life that should be considered.

By the way, is this blog still going to be active? It would be great to see some posts here!

I want to do it for my pets for sure, and would consider it for others. I like the way it's a metamorphosis. Your body becomes something else. But I get that it could squick people out. I just personally think it's lovely.